Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday October 11, 2012 @07:32PM
from the more-coke-more-pepsi-where's-bloomberg-now? dept.

Tonight's debate between the two largest American political parties' candidates for vice president of the United States takes place at Danville, Kentucky's Centre College, starting at 9 p.m. Joe Biden and Paul Ryan will face each other on stage, and are expected to talk about issues "including the economy, foreign policy and the role of the Vice President," according to C-SPAN, which will feature a live streaming view of the event. (Criteria from the Commission on Presidential Debates
means you won't hear tonight from other presidential candidates' running mates (like Cheri Honkala, Jim Clymer, and
James Gray, of the Green, Constitution, and Libertarian party tickets, respectively). If you'll be watching the debate tonight, please add your commentary below. It would be helpful if you start your comment's title with a time-stamp (to the minute), too, for context. (Like this: "9:08: $Candidate just intentionally mis-repeated the Q on taxes.") And Yes, we're posting this here in a vain attempt to keep the political discussion out of other story threads tonight.
Update: 10/12 01:18 GMT by U L: If you don't have flash, you can use rtmpdump and mplayer to watch (incantation duplicated below, in case the site is slashdotted).

I'll be playing Logical Fallacy Bingo [lifesnow.com] against my friends. I personally expect it to be a fast bingo game.

I just feel I should point out that simply because someone is using a fallacy, doesn't make them wrong (the fact they are politicians does that... but I digress). Fallacies are commonly used rhetorical methods to convince... lets say, more emotional audiences... and practically nothing gets people more emotional than politics (religion can be more heated, but not nearly as commonly). Which is not to say it is acceptable to use them, just, well, using them shouldn't be taken as proof against the position espoused by the person who uses them (doing that is, in itself, a fallacy, though I don't care to look up the name... guilt by association? Close enough).

Actually, some things that are ordinarily fallacies cease to even be fallacies in the context of a political debate. For example, ad hominem attacks are not inherently fallacies in the context of a political debate because the desired outcome of the debate is not to decide whose stated position is right, but rather who would be the better choice for that office.

A classic example of a non-fallacious fallacy in political debates is the appeal to hypocrisy. Such an appeal is fallacious when used to evaluate the validity of the candidate's position. However, the appeal is not entirely fallacious with regard to the debate as a whole because what actually matters is the way the candidate will likely actually vote, not the way the candidate says he or she will vote.

In fact, to the degree that a significant number of appeals to hypocrisy can be made against a politician, it usually dooms the candidate in question, and for good reason. If you don't really know where the candidate stands—if he or she says one thing and does another—that person is a really bad choice for any office.

I was turned off by an empty platform of "hope and change" when I could select a candidate with more experience both as a representative and a reformer. I wasn't happy that he was starting to kowtow to the extremists a little too much but it was the early days of the Tea Partiers.

But he's an old man and not in perfect health. I'm not putting that woman one heart attack away from a presidency. Now 4 years later I'll be voting for Obama based on his performance and strong loathing of Mittens.

What performance? He took credit for a preexisting withdrawal timeline in Iraq. Gitmo is still open. He sent a surge into Afghanistan. He had a friendly Congress for half his term and got nothing done. You must have a really low bar when it comes to performance.

I think the logic is, it's not getting worse as fast as it was under the prior regime.

I feel like Obama was put in the drivers seat just when the car we're in has come under attack by drug cartel because some idiot drove us into a warzone, so now when he's trying to get us out of there, the previous driver is in the passenger seat complaining about following the speed limit and all traffic laws and grabbing at the steering wheel and brakes. and the passengers in the car are saying..why aren't we going anywhere?! we're so mad we're going vote the original driver back in..

Biden did a good job reminding everyone that the mess we are in now didn't exactly happen by accident. As he noted it happened precisely because guy's like Ryan voted to put two major wars, the largest tax cut in history and the largest increase to Medicare in history on the public credit card, while leaving Wall Street so unregulated that credit default swaps sold like hotcakes.

Weak minds seem to also have weak memories, yet for the GOP in 2012 it's all so convenient.

What I liked best about the Romney/Ryan plan was just how by magic it's going to solve all of our problems and all I will have to do is pay more for health care coverage so that I can enjoy watching Mitt and friends laugh all the way to the bank. It makes one wonder if the magic was so potent, why didn't Mitt run for a second term in Massachusetts? I guess a few new wars have to be added to the mix to make it all work out. Just like last time.

The 911 attacks were a result of eight years of capitulations by Clinton.

That's simply an outright lie. The Clinton administration actively pursued bin Laden. In 1996 the CIA created a special group tasked with tracking bin Laden. In 1998 Clinton ordered a Tomahawk strike against bin Laden's training camps. In 1999, the Clinton administration directed the CIA to train and equip 60 Pakistani commandos to take out bin Laden, but the plan fell apart after a military coup in Pakistan.

Clinton tried to take out bin Laden but never succeeded. But there's no evidence that the Bush Administration ever pursued bin Laden or even took much interest in him before 9/11, even with the warnings of an impending attack, and they dropped the ball after 9/11. They were too interested in Saddam. Of course, in the end, it turned out that Saddam no longer had an active WMD program. The reason? Airstrikes ordered as part of Operation Desert Fox had destroyed Saddam's weapons programs and with the sanctions in place, he was never able to get them started again. Those airstrikes, by the way, were ordered by Bill Clinton.

It is interesting that Obama asked the pentagon to come up with a plan that would actually protect the citizens in Libya and work. And now the dictator has gone. There was hardly any political upside to doing this. But I believe that it was the right thing to do. It is possible now that Libya will have a democratic tradition in 10 or 20 years, less prone to war, and a strong ally -- there is now that possibility.

As much as I wish he had actually been more "socialist". He has pretty much done the majority of the items he promised to do on election day. Yes, I'd prefer if he created a single payer health care system, reduced mandatory prison sentencing, doubled NASA's budget, seriously cut military spending, and tackled global warming.

Maybe I'm just young, but most of my adult life has been under Bush, and now Obama. Bush seemed to mostly screw things up. Obama seems to mostly push things in a better direction.

The Obama administration objected Thursday to immediately ending the military's ban on openly gay service members, saying that an injunction to stop the "don't ask, don't tell" policy might harm military readiness in a time of war.

In a filing with a federal court in California, the Justice Department said that a judge who struck down the policy as unconstitutional should not enforce that ruling with a military-wide injunction banning the discharge of gay service members.

Kudos to him for coming around to the side of decency and eventually signing the DADT Repeal Act of 2010, albeit after ordering his Justice Department to fight it tooth and nail.

Maybe I'm just young, but most of my adult life has been under Bush, and now Obama. Bush seemed to mostly screw things up. Obama seems to mostly push things in a better direction.

Like Gitmo still being open. Like ordering the assassination of American citizens. Like fighting against the end of indefinite detention of unconvicted, untried suspects. Like the drones circling over the Middle East. This is the "better direction" you see America moving toward?

Note: I'm explicitly not supporting Romney, either. As Douglas Adams might say [williams.edu], they're both the wrong lizards. And given that Romney pretty much invented Obamacare, frankly, I can't really tell them apart.

You have valid points on some of these, but I won't give you Gitmo. There are clauses in funding for Gitmo in the budget that say "Money can not be used to transfer prisoners from here". There is no funding to close Gitmo, so they can't close Gitmo. That funding comes through congress. After fighting to the edge of default a budget was passed that no one liked. Obama has tried multiple times to close Gitmo.

By "two years" you actually mean "six months." Senator Al Franken's election was disputed until July 2009, giving the Democrats vote #60 (if you count Joe Lieberman, which I don't). Senator Ted Kennedy died two months later, and when Scott Brown took over in January 2010, it gave the Republicans 41 votes, the number needed to keep a filibuster going.

Also, there's no filibuster in the House of Representatives.

Also, senators don't have to vote along party lines, or even be members of a political party. Even a filibuster-proof majority doesn't ensure that the President will always be able to get whatever he wants done. Obama made a concerted effort to get Gitmo closed, and bring the prisoners back to U.S. soil for trial. But cowardly idiots from both sides of the aisle warned that doing so would lead to terror attacks inside the U.S. Too many Democrats chose to demagogue rather than risk being labeled "soft on terror."

And what was Obama doing instead? Fulfilling other campaign promises. Overhauling health care. Economic stimulus. Supreme Court appointments. Regulating the financial sector (over the mad howlings of Republicans, who even today are promising a "repeal and replace", minus the part where they actually replace). Expand CHIP, ensuring that kids get health care. Clean energy. The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Singlehandedly snuck into Pakistan, put a bullet in Osama bin Laden's head, then lit a cigarette and said, "Don't fuck with America." *

Sorry, but the people who ask why Obama hasn't gotten more done seem to imagine that presidents hold Rasputin-like sway over Congress. I blame the Republicans for filibustering, the Democrats for not pushing harder against the filibuster, Connecticut for electing Joe Lieberman, and Republicans (again) for being utterly amoral and unwilling to compromise with either the Democrats or reality in general.

111th U.S. Congress [wikipedia.org]Senate: 58% Democrat, 42% Republican (although Democrats had 60 for about 4 months [chicagotribune.com], if you count the independents and blue-dog Dems who didn't always vote along party lines)

House: 59% Democrat, 41% Republican (although there is no filibuster in the House of Representatives)

I see you have email.
Don't forget: You also have a browser.
You can do useful things with a browser.
(like fact check political emails)

Ah, the 'executive orders' email. The number of people that take these emails as gospel just astounds me. This 'Executive Orders' baloney was forwarded to me by my dad. I never ever read a political email and just assume it is factual. And indeed, they are almost always not. This one certainly falls in the 'pants on fire' category.

So far, Obama has issued 138. That is less than 'W' and from a brief inspection everyone else all of the way back to Grover Cleveland (if you average the per term numbers for those with multiple terms). For example Bush issued 173 the first term and 118 the second for an average of about 145.

Personally, I just couldn't look myself in the mirror if I voted for someone who literally stole people's pensions to make a fortune and who then stashed the loot in the Cayman Islands to shelter it from US taxes then have the kuzpah to run for president as the Mr. "Businessman" and savior of the poor 47%. There simply is no possibility that such a guy could possibly be honest enough to do anything other than turn the US into a banana republic. His recent quid pro quos to sell National Parks and US Forest land in exchange for campaign contributions only proves it.

The other guy may bumble from time to time, but at least he's far more honest and working on behalf of a larger share of the public.

And you think the deficits won't get larger with more tax cuts for the rich, the patriot act won't be extended again, drones won't be put into even greater use, and there won't be any more terrorist attacks in the world if Romney gets elected? The issues you pin on Obama won't get resolved with Romney. Methinks they will get worse.
There are other issues besides these, which in my mind, trump the issues mentioned above. Obama wins hands down when it comes to women's rights, religious rights, gay rights, and compassion for the elderly and less fortunate, to name a few issues.
vV

Can we please put this deficit nonsense to bed. Bush waged two wars using "emergency appropriations" to keep them off-budget and, at the same time, passed a huge tax cut with a nine year sunset to keep it out of the ten-year accounting cycle and gave away a few trillion more in corporate welfare to pharma with Medicare Part D. He said it would pay for itself because tax cuts stimulate investment and job growth, but it didn't; instead, it created a trillion dollar hole in the budget representing all the government spending that not even Bush would cut. Repeat: Bush cut revenue by trillions and was unable to cut spending to make up for it. So why would Obama or Romney suddenly be able to? Someone please explain that logic to me!

So Obama walks into office, moves the wars into the budget, and spends 800 billion to stave off a depression. Every year since then, he has reduced the deficit; but suddenly republicans think that Obama should magically slash all the "waste" from the budget that not even Bush was willing to touch because for some reason it's only irresponsible for democrats to run deficits. Repeat: Obama has decreased the deficit, during a recession, every year that he has been in office. The US government, with the exception of part of the Clinton administration, has run a deficit every year since about 1960. The deficit exploded under Bush, who managed to increase it by more than any time since World War II, yet it is Obama's responsibility to turn it around over night? That is called the Two Santa Claus Theory; when republicans are in office, it's spend, spend, spend, and use accounting tricks to hide how bad it is and then, when a democrat gets into office, it's suddenly all about debt and deficits and getting spending under control.

Romney/Ryan are proposing more tax cuts; they want to reduce revenue even further. Why? Because, clearly, the problem with the Bush tax cuts and the reason Bush ended eight years with negative net job growth is because he didn't cut taxes enough! But don't worry, their tax cuts will be revenue neutral because they'll close "loopholes," but not the mortgage interest deduction, which is the second or third largest loophole in the tax code (depending on how you count it). No, they're going to do it by eliminating things like PBS, which comprise around 0.0001% of the budget. Capital gains? No, that loophole should remain because we can't "double tax" investors. As if you don't get double taxed when you pay sales tax after your payroll and income taxes. You tax actions and behaviors not money; money is fungible, you literally cannot tax the same dollar twice.

Seriously, watch the VP debate, the tax plan of Paul "Mr. Numbers" Ryan, the "intellectual leader of the GOP" and Mitt "I'll say anything to get elected" Romney, is: "Trust us, the math works out, but we're not going to give you specifics." Uh-huh, just like when you ran for governor and said "trust me, I filed my taxes as a Massachusetts resident," which you totally did, retroactively, after you were caught lying. Oh, but we're not supposed to talk about Bush or your tax returns--that's all in the past... except for when Ryan invokes Ronald Reagan and JFK in the debates; no, that is being serious.

Obama isn't perfect, nor is Biden. I'm not a democrat (or a republican), but I am so sick of this completely disingenuous nonsense about the deficit. I know, I know, you'll never go broke betting on the stupidity of the American electorate, but this is just basic f-ing arithmetic.

But don't worry, their tax cuts will be revenue neutral because they'll close "loopholes," but not the mortgage interest deduction, which is the second or third largest loophole in the tax code (depending on how you count it).

I'm still surprised Obama didn't pick up on this at the first debate: Either Romney's proposed tax cut reduces revenue, or it's not really something that can legitimately be called a "tax cut", because -$5 trillion+$5 trillion=0. My guess on what he's going to go after for "loopholes" is the Earned Income Tax Credit, which creates a sort of "negative tax" for people who earn less than the federal poverty line. In other words, it's the policy that creates the semi-mythical "freeloading" 47%.

Obviously, you haven't been paying attention. The Roberts court specifically found the law constitutional. That is all that is required besides the law being passed by both the House and the Senate and signed by the President to make it constitutional. What constitution were you studying in grade school?

My view is that it can't be health care reform because it makes the problems that it alleges to solve worse. For example, it greatly expands health insurance coverage and subsidizes a bunch of people

1. If you have a private health service, the vast majority of people will need insurance one way or another. Contrary to the sashdot libertarian group opinion, most people do not earn enough to save sufficient to cover potential costs of even tens, never mind hundreds of thousands of dollars.

2. Yes, the poor are subsidized by the rich. It is at least a nod towards egalitarianism and fairness.

3. At some point, you have to choose whether you want a selfish, rightwing, money-obsessed Randian society or a more equal, harmonious one.

The conservatives routinely reject scientific logic, bending toward religion, oil, war and the rich. President Obama has completed treaties, enacted historic Health care changes (Emergency rooms for all you'd rather have?), rejuvenated the Auto industry, enhanced the vision of America all over the world and kept the Second Depression from happening.

* Gitmo is still open - good, it should be, he was wrong to say he'd close it and he was right to reverse himself* Afghanistan - he increased the effort there in accordance with his promise to do so, which was good policy, and the most common criticism is that he didn't send more or leave them there longer* Friendly Congress - yeah, totally, he got nothing done, except you know the culmination of 90 years of progressive activism [wikipedia.org]

I suspect, though, that you were baiting, so I will return your wink./wink

How cynical can you get? The GOP plays non-stop obstructionism, and then blames the Dems for not getting anything done. The Dems only had 4 months with a filibuster proof majority. The rest of those two years was perpetual GOP filibustering.

When you say stuff like this -- just makes me think that the GOP faithful are ideological fools. The conservative party/used/ to have a fine tradition.

The Dems only had 4 months with a filibuster proof majority. The rest of those two years was perpetual GOP filibustering.

This I don't get. When I was a kid I remember hearing the news using this weird word filibuster. They were showing this wrinkly white haired guy droning on about whatever. He looked a bit rumpled because he'd been at it for hours. It used to be if you wanted to filibuster you needed to hold the floor and have enough votes to prevent a vote to end debate. Filibusters were pretty rare and even a bit of a shocking tactic. It was not frequently done, because you had to both keep talking and keep enough senators supporting the filibuster in the room constantly. Now days it has morphed into something completely different. The senate republicans have used the filibuster for every single vote in the last 4 years. This is a level of obstructionism that literally has no precedence in our history. Effectively the senate rules have been changed to require a 60% majority to pass anything. There are hundreds of appointed positions that have gone unfilled for the entire Obama administration. The republicans used this power to hold our nation's economy and credit rating hostage on multiple occasions to force their minority positions through.

The senate rules need to change. Filibusters should actually be required to fillibuster.

The role of Vice President has changed quite a bit over only the past couple decades. Vice Presidents take an active roll in policy implementation and even decision making. They also do quite a bit diplomatically and even a bit of PR.

Normally no, and not this year, but four years ago there was a special exception. You could say that Palin was too scary to be that close to the Presidency, or you could say that picking her was an indication of McCain's terrible judgement. Either way, 2008 was an outlier. This year Ryan and Biden are both reasonably capable and highly informed individuals. Neither of them are terrible or dangerous.

What, Mr. "Whichever Way The Wind Blows" Romney isn't dangerous? Not through innate evilness, but through sheer amoral used car salesman "I'll say whatever it takes to become prez, and I'll do whatever benefits me and my friends if I do become prez"?

Ryan, he's more honest. But way to the right of what the American people want. Most Americans (even Catholics) don't want to throw the advances women had out the window.

The problem is, while the spotlight is on the national stage, real change happens from the bottom up. That means running for, and voting 3rd party at the city, county, or even state level.

For example, if you're interested in digital freedom, and curtailing "IP" laws, participate in and/or donate to your local Pirate Party (and many states do have such an organization). That's just one of the many numerous smaller political parties out there that might better represent your views.

If you're wondering what the immediate effects of doing such a thing are, since "IP" is a federal thing, the answer is that there are no immediate effects. But the extra help and/or money increases exposure. And like small businesses with an interesting product, getting the word out is the most important part. Only once people start hearing about it is the brand image important.

Sound too much like a business? It's because parties really are run like businesses, except as they don't make a profit, they're non-profit. But if you think non-profits aren't run like businesses internally, you've got another thing coming.

I live in CA. It will go to Obama. I will once again vote for the leading 3rd party since that is the best way to make my vote count. Sadly, when people call me to ask me who I want to vote for, "neither" or any 3rd party answer is taken as "undecided".

Not necessarily true. In the US, the Green Party has something like 135 local elected officials. About the same number of Libertarians. Two US senators (Sanders-VT and Lieberman-CT) are 3rd party, and after the November elections there will likely still be two.

Whether any of these parties can marshal the effort to escalate their victories to higher percentages (or offices) is not clear. But they might.

The insane ballot requirements for 3rd parties already filters out complete cranks. Why not just make the debates open to anybody who is on the ballot in a sufficient number of states to obtain an electoral college victory? Of course the reality is that with any significant 3rd-party vote Congress will simply end up selecting the president, as happens in any parliamentary system of government. If we simply allowed proportional election of representatives then we'd basically be a parliamentary system as a result. I'd consider that a change for the better.

This is one of the major issues preventing any real change from happening in the US federal government

I genuinely do not understand why americans, particularly the ones who frequent tech boards, think a third party would actually be helpful. Well I understand why it's on tech boards, there are the automated shills and a particular ideological attraction to a point of view, but in practical political terms it's silly. I live in canada, we've had at one point 5 parties holding federal seats, and now have 4. 60% of the population *doesn't* like the current government, but he has essentially absolute power (within the confines of parliamentary power) because he has a majority of seats. The 'extra' parties just divide the vote up, and whether you do that as a proportional representation and require pork project trading by MP's across party lines or do it at a smaller level of pouring resources into contested districts the net effect of bad federal policy (or at least inefficient policy) is the same.

Third parties, or more, simply lead to horse trading and pandering to try and bribe or coerce the smaller parties into a mainstream voting block, and in exchange they end up with something that's usually crazy or generally bad policy, but that's the price to be paid to govern at all.

Government only really can do 3 things, tax, spend and make laws. The vast majority of actual issues are either binary or on a 2 dimensional spectrum (you support the death penalty, oppose it, or you narrowly support it for certain things. You support a defence department somewhere on the spectrum of 500 billion dollars to 1 trillion dollars and no one serious is talking about anything outside that range, etc. I realize the tech community in general have latched onto some ideas about 'liberatrianism' but that is, in the US, on the slant of smaller government republicans.

The US government only spends money on a handful of things of any significance:Defence related spending ~ 900 billion.Healthcare/social security/social safety net stuff (broadly social programmes) ~1.7 trillion (not counting the healthcare spending done under defence)

That gets you to 2.6 trillion dollars. there's some interest payments on debt. that gets you to 2.8 trillion. And then there is

Coordination and support of things that effect multiple (or all) states or that are too big or variable to be left to individual states, insurance on education healthcare etc. (most of discretionary spending in the US, though I would count veterans affairs and homeland security as really defence related, the term 'discretionary' is a legal budget term, not a practical 'what is this spending supposed to be for' term).Which takes another 400 or 500 billion. Over a lot of different programmes none of which are individually very big.

And lastly, what I would call 'other'. Stuff the government has agreed to pay for that isn't under the umbrella of any specific category, but people decided they want, and a lot of stuff here would be needed to be done somehow, it's matter of how you count it. Think agriculture, NASA, Energy, EPA etc. Again, lots of little pieces of things that have some national significance.

So you've only really got 4 things. No one sane (or who can do math) is going to toss ~230 billion dollars in interest payments off a 3.6 trillion dollar budget. So what do you want?

Except that neither of them really do much of that when they actually get into office, and no other political party in the world is much different. Democrats don't want to be seen as soft on terrorism so they waste some money on defence for theatre, republicans don't want to alienate the crazy old man with medicare vote so they won't actually cut medicare much, and well, that's pr

The sad truth, if you look at literally every democratic country in the world, is that they all more or less evolve into the same basic sort of scumbag. The details are local, but they're not much different.

You won't read anything about Biden not being engaged tomorrow. So far he's making Ryan look like an amateur and he's not letting Ryan get away with lying.

Biden is crushing it.

Don't worry, in a few hours the punditocracy will be lampooning Biden for smiling too much, or the wrong way, or having the wrong facial expression; anything to avoid addressing the actual content of the debate. The press is either at your feet or your throat and as the polls shift towards Romney, so will the press. They hate fact-checking politicians because it can cost them access, but they also hate transcribing lies, so instead they'll talk about Paul Ryan's hair or the performance of the moderator.

You think? I thought she was more aggressive than I've ever seen a moderator at a Pres/VP debate. She cut off each one of them more than once. She visibly tried to divide the time and her questions were pretty specific. I was not familiar with that (probably very famous) journalist but I thought she was pretty decent.

In the colonial Commonwealth of Massachusetts, my vote does not count. I'm not far from Plymouth Rock, the place where pissed-off subjects of King George landed after betting their lives that there was a better way to civilize.

I have voted for Republican candidates in the past but I'm done with them. GWB/Cheney/Rumsfeld fucked us hard. That bastard Romney came here to my state, where he doesn't fucking belong, and fucked us over. Now he's attempting to take over the Oval Office on the grounds that what he did to Massachusetts should not be done to the USA. He should be swimming with the fish in Boston Harbor.

If there was a candidate who ran on the platform of tearing off Romney's head and shitting down his neck, he'd get my vote.

I caught ~20 minutes of it while driving home from work tonight. It did seem like Biden was more aggressive than the usual M.O. for this administration and Ryan was surprisingly calm. Considering how far outside the mainstream Ryan's ideas fall, I figured he would be more passionate about it. It seemed like the moderator didn't do much to stop them from addressing each other directly, yet it didn't seem to phase Ryan much.

That said, what I heard was towards the end. Attitudes of the candidates may well have changed along the way.

There's been 14 VPs who became president but not all became president when the incumbent died in office. That's why I believe the country was holding its breath that Dan Quayle didn't get the job and that GB Sr. Had excellent health care.

Three other reasons the VP matters:1. VP's can end up being the heir apparant after somebody's second term is up e.g. Richard Nixon and Al Gore. (Also off your "died in office" list: Harry Truman)2. Vice presidents can and do get involved in the administration of the country, at the direction of the president, and almost always have the presidents' ear if they want it. e.g. Al Gore had a lot to do with Clinton's computing technology initiatives, and Dick Cheney had a lot to do with George W Bush's foreign policy.3. For non-incumbents, the VP pick is the first major decision that the candidate makes. Seeing who they pick goes a long way towards seeing how they'd actually govern, rather than how they say they'd govern.

It is always humorous to watch the political fanbois go at it from the sidelines. Seeing people become so impassioned about which set of crooks are going stuff the shirts this time around is a devil's belly laugh. As has been said so many times, when the boot of government is on your throat, it makes no difference if it is a left boot or a right boot.

Both sides may be "crooks", depending on the criteria, but I don't think you can say that it makes no difference who is elected. ie. The Affordable Care Act is an event on the scale of the imposition of an federal income based tax, or the start of the Social Security system. Regardless of your feeling of the act itself, its is highly significant, and its a certainty that it wouldn't have passed if McCain had been elected. So its petulant and intellectually dishonest to say that its "makes no difference"

Correct. There's a difference. If Romney wins, there will almost certainly be a war with Iran. If Obama wins, there may not be. That is literally a life or death difference to many, many people who would live or die according to that choice.

Well that's just Reagan vs Carter all over again. Iran knew Carter wouldn't bomb them if they didn't release the hostages. Reagan pretty much promised to. Iran released the hostages the moment Reagan was elected.

Romney's promised to repeal Obamacare, but I don't think he actually wants to. It IS his health care plan, after all. Unless he has a super majority in the senate, he won't be able to, so he'll be able to keep it and blame the Democrats for not being able to get rid of it. That's textbook having y

Romney's promised to repeal Obamacare, but I don't think he actually wants to.

Romney has an even better plan!
He promised to repeal the Health Care Act, but keep just the good parts that everyone likes (preexisting conditions/covering children/etc). Consistent with his general budget plan of cutting taxes for everyone 20%, increasing military spending and remaining revenue neutral or even positive.

Well that's just Reagan vs Carter all over again. Iran knew Carter wouldn't bomb them if they didn't release the hostages. Reagan pretty much promised to. Iran released the hostages the moment Reagan was elected.

Umm. Didn't they release the hostages because the US, under Reagan, agreed to sell them weapons through proxies?

Yes. Contragate. The hostages were released the day Reagan took office, which means the Reagan team was negotiating with America's worst enemy behind the back of proper diplomatic channels during a campaign, and whipped up the drugs for arms for Iranians deal.

Well that's just Reagan vs Carter all over again. Iran knew Carter wouldn't bomb them if they didn't release the hostages. Reagan pretty much promised to. Iran released the hostages the moment Reagan was elected.

From most of the accounts of the Iran hostage crisis that I have read, it always seemed fairly clear that Carter did all of the negotiations to free the hostages, and Iran only waited until Reagan took office before releasing them to spite Carter for his support of the Shah. Unrelated events also put pressure on Iran to end the standoff, such as the USSR invading their neighbor Afghanistan and being invaded themselves by Iraq. That last part was probably the biggest driver for an end to the crisis, as Iran was fielding primarily American military hardware and hoped that by releasing the hostages they could secure parts and supplies to keep their military going.

Doubtless that someone always pays. The act changes who is going to be directly paying. That's significant.

And there's other examples, some of them quite easy. Gore likely wouldn't have put troops into Iraq, again supressing your feelings of the event itself. What would Carter have done with the air traffic controllers, and would it have precipitated or acted against the rise of anti-union feeling in the country since? Would Nixon have initiated the Great Society and all its culteral consequences?

you don't have to be a sociopathic libertarian to know that in the era of aging populations there will never be enough money for hc. The First World simply sweeps the problem under the rug with deficits.

The US's problems with healthcare spending were (and still are) entirely out of proportion with respect to everyone else's. When you're spending approximately double what anyone else is (as a proportion of GDP) and not getting particularly great outcomes for it, something's got to give. (I've also seen comments on slashdot which said that healthcare was being used to create effective indentured servitude; that's Just Plain Wrong if it is true.) Moving towards a universal healthcare system at least starts to align everyone's interests again, and encourage the use of healthcare solutions that reduce costs rather than increasing them.

The rising costs associated with an aging population are best addressed by requiring people to work longer; if the boomers were to retire at 70, there'd be much less of a problem as they'd be net paying in for much larger proportion of their lives. (OTOH, I can understand why this would be unpopular...)

We'll never know how many would have died at the hands I'd Saddam's son either (he was known for being a complete sociopath with homocidal tendencies, torturing multiple people to death because they displeased him).

The best estimates of the number of people GWB killed in the Iraq war are between 150,000 (New England Journal of Medicine) and 600,000 (The Lancet).

Even Uday wouldn't have killed that many people. Indeed, we probably tortured more Iraqi prisoners to death than Uday did.

At least Saddam knew how to run a country. Everybody got a basic food basket. The electricity ran. Iraq had the best health care system in the Moslem middle east. Iraq had one of the best education systems -- they had a higher ratio of women college professors than the US. They sent graduate students to study medicine and engineering in London. Saddam was a secularist who suppressed the Islamist extremists. What did GWB replace it with? A third-world country in which armed gangs kill more people than Saddam did. In which Sunnis and Shiites kill each other like the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

I used to think that, until the Iraq War. That disaster made me much more partisan. I really think hundreds of thousands of people died because Gore (barely!) lost that election.

Enough Democrats (including Hillary and Kerry) voted for the Iraq war that GWB could get away with it.

Yeah, it makes a difference. The Democrats will be better than the Republicans. But the Dems have moved so far to the right that the difference is getting smaller every year. If you look at the issues, Obama is farther to the right on domestic policy than Nixon.

-- Instead of a single-payer health care system, or even a public option, Obama gave us a health care plan designed by the Heritage Foundation, for the benefit of the insurance companies that contributed even more to Obama's campaign than to McCain's.

-- Obama took GWB's No Child Left Behind, and added to it with Race to the Top, which forces states and cities to break their union contracts and destroy public education with charter schools if they want to keep getting their federal education money. It's destroying the unions.

-- Instead of prosecuting the people responsible for the worst financial crisis since the depression, including outright fraud, he appointed the very people responsible for the crisis to handle the crisis.

-- When O'Keefe made a fraudulent video about ACORN, instead of defending ACORN, the Democrats abandoned ACORN and let the Republicans destroy the most valuable voter-registration organization the Democrats had. Brilliant! Now who's going to register your voters?

-- When you ask Democrats why we should vote for Obama, they're finally reduced in desperation to saying, "Supreme Court." Yeah, we'll get Supreme Court justices who are merely "centerists" (conservatives) rather than getting far-right partisan justices who will brazenly ignore the Constitution as they did in Bush vs. Gore. Of course the Democrats would never consider a filibuster in a Supreme Court nomination.

"Vote for us, because the alternative is horrible" is not a very inspiring reason to vote.

Enough Democrats (including Hillary and Kerry) voted for the Iraq war that GWB could get away with it.

And Biden. But he wanted you to forget that when he chastized Ryan for voting for the wars.

which forces states and cities to break their union contracts and destroy public education with charter schools if they want to keep getting their federal education money. It's destroying the unions.

1. Break union contracts, good. They are often very costly to the schools. I remember one complaining mid-career 5th grade teacher making over 85,000 in pay and benefits.

2. Destroy public schools, no. Charter schools are public schools, just not government-run schools, but held to the same standards of education.

3. Destroying the unions. I note your sig saying "I wanted an FDR." FDR absolutely opposed the concept of public sector unions, and did not allow them to happen during his tenure. Public sector unions are the union bosses negotiating with the politicians they help put into office how to put more taxpayer money into union coffers, which goes back around to reelecting those same politicians. Do you see the kids anywhere in that equation? It isn't. As one famous teacher union boss said, they'll start looking out for kids when the kids start paying union dues.

Sounds like you're more pro-union than pro-education. You've moved to the left.

Instead of prosecuting the people responsible for the worst financial crisis since the depression

You can't put lawmakers in jail for how they vote. Dodd is retired and Frank will soon, so we won't be able to fire them for preventing the higher oversight sought by Bush. And it would be politcially impossible to prosecute all those bad-credit homebuyers who wanted something for nothing.

the Democrats abandoned ACORN

Because ACORN was obviously willing to help people engage in criminal enterprise. He did do some selective editing, but overall the evidence is quite damning.

Of course the Democrats would never consider a filibuster in a Supreme Court nomination.

Yes they would. They're capable of any underhanded tactic, even racist. They filibustered the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the DC appeals court (first time ever at that level) because he's Hispanic. He was being groomed to be the next Supreme Court justice, but staff notes got leaked that the Democrats did not want the Republicans to appoint the first Hispanic justice to the court. The Democrats wanted that honor for themselves, and were willing to push that date back by years in order to get it. There would be an Estrada instead of an Alito or Roberts.

"Vote for us, because the alternative is horrible" is not a very inspiring reason to vote.

That's true, and applies to the particularly uninspiring Republican side too.

Not being an American, it was rather a shock to hear a member of the military calling up after the debate that America should invade Iran and they they urge people to vote for a certain candidate so nobody touched the military. The justification? "We have to get them before they get us".

Great work America - fix your shit up by going to war. That worked so well last time.

I think the defining issue is ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. If you watch Fox, they've tried all sorts of talking points to try to kill this issue and they keep trying new angles:

Remember, 'taxing job creators'? As if taxing rich peoples personal income will cause their companies to fire lots of people.Remember 'dividing American?' i.e. claiming that singling out rich people for more taxes is dividing American!Remember '53% vs 47%', the flip of dividing America, where they claim the majority are against the minority who don't pay direct fed taxes... that one died when it was pointed out a lot of the top 1% don't pay any taxes at all.Remember 'the haves and the soon to haves?' i.e. you'll be rich soon, and then you'll get to pay less than 13%!What about 'Robin Hood on Steroids'? The latest one, the 'income redistribution is bad', as if taking their tax cuts away from them is some sort of highway robbery!

You can see just from watching Fox, what the Republicans feel their defining issue is. It's tax cuts for the rich.

Are you serious? You can't think of a single issue on which Obama and Romney differ?

How about taxes? Romney's official plan is a 20% across the board cut, at a cost of $500B/yr, which will be paid for by *handwaves furiously*. Obama's plan is ditch the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and bring capital gains taxes about halfway back towards where they were under Clinton.

How about healthcare? Romney's on the record saying things were alright pre-Obamacare, and he wants to go back to that. Obama, obviously, wants to keep Obamacare on the books.

How about military spending? Obama is trying to cut it by $100B/yr, while Romney's proposal is to raise it by $200B/yr.

How about Medicare? Obama wants to keep it mostly as is, making small adjustments to keep it solvent. Romney wants to make it a voucher system that would force senior citizens to turn to for-profit corporations for their healthcare.

How about abortion? Obama wants women to be in charge of their own bodies, Romney is on record supporting a life-begins-at-conception amendment and has pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v Wade. Considering that a few of the current liberal justices are getting up there in years, he would almost certainly be able to have abortion outlawed nationwide.

That's just off the top of my head. Sure, if you only care about IP law and drone strikes, the two candidates are identical. But there are lots of very important issues on which the two candidates couldn't be more different.

The GOP have descended into an alternate reality -- and taken many with them. This will be lethal to them over time, as demographic changes clearly favour the dems.

The GP really did nail the issues, and the GOP will really need to remake themselves, and soon.

The only reason why Romney has a snowballs chance in hell is because the economy hasn't recovered so fast. It is utterly amazing the Obama is in the race at all given the economic figures. And the reason is that even the GOP faithful are starting to

Can anyone identify an issue - not an opinion or a general feeling or a policy goal, but an actual issue - for which Obama and Romney are on opposite sides?

Firstly: pretty much any social conservative issue. Repeal DADT? GOP will do that. Stop women getting health insurance coverage for contraception through their employers? Yep the GOP want that too. Ban abortion -- if they could. They certainly will appoint the supreme court in such a way that Roe v Wade will eventually end.

Also, the Dems will almost certainly not promulgate the war on science that the GOP is involved in. You really want someone in charge of the EPA who is a paranoid anti-science conspiracy theorist (Inhofe). What about the guy on the house science committee who thinks that evolution and cosmology are lies from the pit of hell to make people think that they do not need Jesus as their saviour?

Also, the GOP will veto tax increases on the 1%. As for the dems, they caved once on this already. But this time, they may draw blood on the issue. So there's the whole trickle-down versus keynesian economics thing. I would argue that giving the rich more money will not spur the economy because there is already a glut of investment money. We have a deficit in demand.

So there are three *huge* and *stark* differences between the parties: gender equality, the place of science in society, and nigh on opposite views on economics. If the dems controlled the house and senate, Romney would veto this stuff, and vice versa.

It took me a long time to realise this, and it is both shocking and depressing. But politicians really do believe most of what they say. They even believe in their outright lies.

an experienced person who knows how the world works and wants to equalize what has been out of balance for quite a long time.

ryan comes across as a stupid, spoiled little brat who does not understand how the world works and simply insists his way should be the way for everyone. he has no sympathy or compassion in him, NONE AT ALL. soulless.

we would be in very bad shape if that child got control of the world.

biden has heart. I don't like many politicians, but I could tolerate him. ryan, I cannot stomach. just cannot, even a little bit. like nails on a chalkboard.

Can anyone explain how the Romney tax plan works. We've all heard it doesn't add up, so I'll just summarize that below. What I'm looking for are explanations of how it makes sense. I heard Ryan not explain it. He talks about "broadening a base" via eliminating deductions. What does that mean?

Summary of the tax plan (taken from Romney website):1) No AMT, no estate tax2) No tax on Dividends, INterest or Cap gains.3) cut maximum tax bracket by 20% from bush maximum: that is to say 15% on ordinary income.4) Eliminate "most" deductions but keep home mortgage deduction.

Consider that top teir earners pay most of the tax in the US right now and that they earn most of their income from Cap gains not Ordinary income like wages. If you remove the tax on cap gains, then they pay only a few percent on their combined income. This will drastically reduce not just their "share" but strongly imapct total revenue.

Note that lowering deductions barely affects this analysis. Even if you set the ordinary income tax rate at 110% on the wealthy, the fact that nearly all their income is cap gains means they still pay almost no tax. Furthermore since there is no estate tax, this situation does not correct itself at death.

SO how can this meet the claims about revenue neutral, not lowering the share of the upper income earners, or not push more taxes on the middleclass.

I'm looking for explanations not anti romney propganda. And what does "broadening the base" mean if there's no cap gains tax?

It's simple Milton Friedmann economics inspired by Ayn Rand. You cut taxes on the wealthy and corporations, and that magically fuels the economy. Never mind that it's got a proven track record of failing everywhere it's been used (read up on the WTO's Friedmann-conditioned loans to third-world countries).

It's an idealistic vision for how economies work that is very appealing to people with money or people who think they're going to be rich one day. In reality, in really bad economic times the rich just sit on their bank rolls and wait for things to get better because they can afford to. If the economy runs out of bargain hunters as capital dries up, you end up in a feedback loop as the economy spirals downward. Hence, trillions in government stimulus spending.

Translation: You're mad that the ARRA actually built things, rather than just handing out money to a handful of lucky Americans.

Sure, we could have just bought 2.4M spoons, and had every new "worker" go out, find an empty plot of ground, and spend their hours digging holes and filling them back in.

But if you want to actually build stuff, you gotta buy some actual backhoes. You've got to buy cement, and lumber, and steel, and nails, and wiring. The value of the things that actually got built by those jobs has to be accounted for.

And let's not forget that $288B of the ARRA's price tag actually did exactly what you're suggesting: handed money back to people in the form of tax credits. This was Obama trying to make the bill "bipartisan", giving the Republicans some of what they said they wanted. Result? Zero Republican votes in the House, two-and-a-half in the Senate.*

Obama's own economists told him that these tax breaks would have little stimulus effect, but the Republicans demanded that they be included in a bill that they had no intention of voting for anyhow.

There's also a lot of other "just give money to people" provisions, like unemployment benefits, food stamps, WIC, TANF, etc. These transfer programs incur very low overhead [motherjones.com]. There's $80B in direct giveaways under "aid to low-income workers, unemployed, and retirees," the aforementioned $288B given away in tax credits, and a couple of other nickely-dimey programs that amount to handing deficit money to people in the hopes that they spend it.

Given that the ARRA basically followed your source's "hand out money" plan for about half its budget, by The Weekly Standard's reasoning, the other $400B spent on scientific research, weatherizing buildings, energy efficiency, upgrading the electrical grid, building roads, and a laundry list of other things... all that may as well have been flushed down the toilet.

The point is, the ARRA did so much more [wikipedia.org] than just put people to work. It invested in scientific research, improved the energy efficiency of homes and businesses, modernized health care records and information services, sent young men and women to college, and a bunch of other things that will pay long-term dividends.

* I'm counting Arlen Specter's vote as half a vote, because he switched to the Democratic party a few months later.

He is calling for public subsidies to public broadcasting to be eliminating. This includes both PBS and NPR.

...he thinks there is no reason for the Federal government to supply it with 12% of its budget [forbes.com].

...And he's wrong. There is an excellent reason for the Federal government to supply them with money. These stations are non-profits specifically dedicated to public education. I get so sick of this attitude that it's not government's job to promote the general welfare of this country. Go re-read the Constitution sometime, it's in the first sentence.

Public radio and public television have done more to educate pre-schoolers than any other education program. Here's a list of bullet points that I ran across recently:

PBS is the number one source of media content for pre-school teachers.

The American public has named PBS the most trusted public institution for nine consecutive years.

Children who watched Sesame Street in pre-school spend more time reading for fun in high school and obtain higher grades in English, math, and science.

Kids who played the Martha Speaks app for two weeks had a 31% gain in vocabulary tested.

Last year, PBS offered more than 500 hours of arts and cultural programming watched by more than 121 million people.

While the federal appropriation equals about 15% of the system's revenue, that's an aggregate number. For many PBS stations, including those that serve people who may need it most, this counts for as much as 50%.

...And there were a few other bullet points, but you get the idea. Whether you're on the left or the right of center, almost everyone agrees that PBS and NPR are worthwhile.

But if you cut the federal subsidy, the end result is that a lot of the smaller stations serving poorer areas that can't raise as much money as those in more prosperous areas will go under. Of course, that seems to be the MO of Republicans these days--we want all of our benefits, and to hell with the poor people.

If the Federal government no longer provides PBS with 12% of its budget, what happens? It either finds someone else to replace that money, or it continues to operate at 88% of current funding.

As I said above, a lot of stations in poorer areas will go under. You seem to be under the impression that anyone who wants to can just cut their budget by 12%. If you're decently well-off, you probably can, but this is why people like me get so frustrated. You have no idea what it's like when people tell you, "Just cut 12%!" when you're barely scraping by.

So, your post is not only wrong, but grossly misleading. That is pretty much the picture for the rest of your post - false or misleading, at best. I don't know who finds that "informative", but you obviously duped someone.

No, the only thing that's misleading is your attempt to justify Romney's brilliant plan to solve our budget problems by eliminating the government subsidy to PBS and NPR. It will most definitely kill its availability in a lot of areas, especially more rural communities and poor communities, the very places where it's needed most.

You've also effectively proved yet again why people like me get so frustrated at Republicans. Look, I understand we have a large deficit. I'm not oblivious to the fact that we're overspending in this country. But why is Romney picking on public broadcasting? I've heard the rationale that, well, you have to go after everything--everyone has to tighten their belts. But it's just awful convenient that to Republicans, everyone having to tighten their belts means that poor and middle class people, p

Obviously your reaction isn't indicative of a typical American reaction, since all the post-debate polls showed Romney won hands down.

No surprise with Romney's tactics: Americans like to be lied to so they can keep their precious illusions intact. That is a huge part of the reason your country is in such a mess now. A bit of humility and actually getting to grips with reality could place the US firmly back in the 1st world. (Forget about "world leadership". That is and has always been one of these illusions. The ability to destroy something does not imply you lead anything.)

Americans like to be lied to so they can keep their precious illusions intact. That is a huge part of the reason your country is in such a mess now.

Spanish unemployment ~ 25%, Greece borders on revolt, the PIGS face economic collapse. The Eurozone is in danger of dissolving. Native European birthrates are so low that Europe is heading toward demographic catastrophe. Large percentages of the large numbers of immigrants brought into Europe do not accept European values and represent a long term danger of civil war. And yet, you cast stones. ..

A bit of humility and actually getting to grips with reality could place the US firmly back in the 1st world.

I think most Americans would rather move forward than back.

(Forget about "world leadership"

That would be taking the eyes off from the road. That doesn't end well usually.

The ability to destroy something does not imply you lead anything.

The ability of the US Navy to destroy the Iranian naval forces planning to block the Straits of Hormuz means that if the need arises, the US Navy will lead the naval task forces keeping the oil flowing to Europe despite the threats of Iranian generals to freeze Europeans in winter [israelnationalnews.com].